


stars may collide

by thefxults



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Moulin Rouge AU, Multi, and brendon is a drag queen cause why not, ryan is a sad gay writer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-05-30 19:50:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6437962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefxults/pseuds/thefxults
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"there was a boy<br/>a strange enchanted boy<br/>they say he wandered very far<br/>very far<br/>over land and sea."</p><p>the year is 1899. ryan is a young author who travels from london to paris to become a writer. there he encounters the moulin rouge, a cabaret club, where he meets the club's most famous showgirl. er, show...guy?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: i do not own any of the themes nor premise of this story. all credits go to baz lurhmann and everyone associated. i do use direct quotes from the film, and those do not belong to me as well.
> 
> happy reading!

Paris, 1900

Fall had just arrived, and the leaves on the trees on the Parisian streets began to curl and decay. The district of Montmarte was as dead as ever. Horse-drawn carriages carelessly passed the gates, and shopkeepers sold their items on the corners, begging for money. Old buildings loomed over the district, peeling paint and shambling windowpanes characterizing the town. Priests stood outside the gates, warning villagers about what lied ahead.

“Turn away from this village of sin!” They shouted, but their pleas went unnoticed.

Prostitutes wandered the streets, taking drags of cheap cigarettes. Their mascara stained cheeks drove away even the most insane of people. Drunk villagers gathered around the Bar Absinthe, the most popular bar in the district.

In one of the tallest buildings in the district, there was an open balcony window. Tattered curtains danced in the wind. Inside of the small room was a man, a typewriter, scattered papers, and empty glass bottles. The man sat in the corner of the room, his head in his knees, clutching a bottle of whatever alcohol he could find.

He looked up, and his face was pale. Wasted tears decorated his cheeks, and his hair looked as though he had been shot through a tornado. He stared at his typewriter, and the machine seemed to laugh in his face. With a disgruntled sigh, he stood up and dusted himself up. He took cautious steps towards the machine, as if it was going to launch out at him.

His tall, thin body loomed over the machine, and he stared at it coldly.

Hours passed, and soon the moon came out from hiding, the light shining only onto his desk. He had not even touched the machine with the tip of his finger.

Finally, he pulled a chair up to the weathered desk. He poured himself a glass of old wine before loading the machine with crumpled paper. He frowned slightly, before lowering his fingers to the cold, metal keys. He thought for a moment, before typing:

_The greatest thing, you’ll ever learn, is just to love, and be loved in return._

He erased the stray tears from his face, before he continued to write.

_The Moulin Rouge. A nightclub, a dance hall, and a bordello, ruled over by Peter Wentz. A kingdom of night time pleasures, where the rich and powerful played with the young and beautiful creatures of the underworld. The most beautiful of all these was the man who I loved. Him. A courtesan, he sold his love to men. They called him “The Sparkling Diamond.” And he was the star of the Moulin Rouge._

He paused for a moment, and read over what he had written. He put his head in his hands and sighed, before going back to the typewriter.

_The boy I loved is dead._


	2. children of the revolution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DISCLAIMER: i do not own any of the themes nor premise of this story. all credits go to baz lurhmann and everyone associated. i do use direct quotes from the film, and those do not belong to me as well.
> 
> happy reading!

Summer 1899

Paris, France

The train pulled into the station, dust fluttering as it skimmed on the tracks. The station was bustling. Young men smiled as they reconnected with their sweethearts, and women cried as they sent their children away for a better life.

I watched from the dust-caked windows as we passed. I saw everyone else, and the faces of people whom I would never see again. To pass the time I made up their stories in my head. All writers did that, didn’t they?

I saw a young couple. The man was tall, and he had dark hair. He was talking to a girl, who’s face was framed by golden curls. He was wearing an army uniform. I thought, why send someone away to the army? There isn’t a war to fight, must we really separate families and lovers? But then again, does anyone truly know what is happening in our world?

The conductor slowed the train down, and people began to gather their belongings. The train doors opened, and I was greeted with the immediate smell of cigarettes and roses. I took my hat and my suitcase from the chair next to me, and stepped onto the pavement. 

As I began to walk, I saw a woman in the center aisle selling flowers from a small bucket. There was a young girl sitting beside her, and a dog on her lap. There was a sign written from cardboard and pencil, that read “Flowers, 1c”. I felt bad for the woman and the child, since they looked like they were struggling. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a one cent coin, and I handed it to the small girl. 

“Pick any one you like.” The woman smiled. 

There wasn’t much to start, but one caught my eye. A bright red rose, sitting lightly on the edge of the bucket. I took the rose by the stem, and the woman thanked me. 

I continued to walk, until I got out into the Paris sun. At that moment I had realized that I wasn’t sure of where I was going. I had come for the Bohemian revolution, and all the way from London, England. 

My father wasn’t happy about my leaving. He thought I was insane for leaving the country for some revolution. But strangely enough, he told me where to go. He told me to go to the town of Monmartre.

Now, standing in Paris, I didn’t have even the slightest idea of where Monmartre was. I realized that I was short on money after buying the rose from the woman in the station, and that if I was to find my way there, I was to walk.  
I asked a woman on the street if she knew the way to the Monmartre district, and she laughed as if I was joking.

“A boy like you, out there? You’ve got to be messing with me, boy.” The woman laughed.

“Ma’am, I’m afraid I’m not.” I replied. Her expression softened a bit.

“You see that hill over there? You’re going to walk all the way up that hill and at the last left you’ll find it.” The woman instructed, pointing to a hill off in the distance.

“Shouldn’t there be instructions that are a bit more specific? I don’t want to waltz right past it.” I asked.

“You don’t need anything more specific than that. When you get there, you’ll know.” The woman finished, before walking away, leaving me in my own thoughts.

About thirty minutes passed before I had reached the top of the hill. I had noticed that the further away I got from the main city, the dingier the city got. 

As I reached the gate to the district, I began to realize that this was not at all what my father had told me. He told me before I left that Monmartre was a “village of sin”, and what I saw here with my own eyes was not what my father had described. This place was in fact a village of the revolution, and the center of the Bohemian world.

Men sat outside the bars, playing their guitars and banjos and merrily singing with drinks in their hands. Writers sat on the cobbled streets, writing diligently in leathered notebooks. Artists sat on their balconies, the colors in the palm of their hand, the colors that gave them the power to create anything they could ever dream of. 

It was then that I realized that I hadn’t a place to stay. I was almost certain that there was a place that I could stay, and I had hoped that a community such as this would accept me into their world.

After roaming about for a few hours I had found a place to stay. It was behind the infamous Moulin Rouge, the most popular club for miles. The room was small, but I decided I didn’t mind. There was a large window facing the district, with a balcony attached to it. There were a few chairs and a bookshelf and a desk.

Yes. I had come to live a penniless existence. I had come to write about truth, beauty, freedom and that which I believed in above all things: love.

I watched the world from my window for a moment, before trying to settle a bit. I placed whatever books I had brought on the middle shelf, and I hung my jacket and hat on a hook next to the red painted door. I swept the dust off the desk with the back of my hand and organized what papers and things I had brought with me. The most foreign place in the world had finally started to feel like home to me.

That night as I was falling asleep, I kept thinking about my father. He didn’t do much but criticize me, and I’d started to believe that his opinions were partly to do with the reason I left. He doubted me, and he would never see past the flaws that I had been given. 

I would spend countless hours on the typewriter in the parlor, and whenever he came downstairs it was always a mix of phrases, such “Always this ridiculous obsession with love!”

Now I cannot deny, he was right about that. I was obsessed with love. Even the mere thought of it was enough to send my head into a spiral. However, there was only one problem. I’d never been in love!


	3. the hills are alive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well hello everyone! i know it's been a while but my dear friend rose ( @rosevest here on ao3 ) has inspired me to bring back this fic. so, without further ado, chapter 2 of stars may collide. 
> 
> side note: i'm aware that in the tags i did plan to have brendon be a male stripper/prostitute, but during the so called hiatus of this fic i became obsessed with drag queens so i thought it would be fun to have his character be a drag queen, with his drag name being satine as homage to the original character.
> 
> another side note: the narcoleptic uruguayan is actually gabe saporta, and michael is mike carden. god i miss cobra. 
> 
> anyway
> 
> DISCLAIMER: i do not own any of the themes nor premise of this story. all credits go to baz lurhmann and everyone associated. i do use direct quotes from the film, and those do not belong to me as well.
> 
> happy reading!

I woke up the next morning and tried to make myself more comfortable. I gave up realizing that I had no furniture as well as money so there wasn’t much I could do. I sighed, looking out the window. It was still in the early hours of morning, and the streets were quiet. I could somewhat smell the bakery next to the club, beginning for the morning rush. Or, well, the usual three people that went every morning. I sat down at my desk, running my fingers over the cracks and stains. 

I heard a thump above me, and I dismissed it seeing as that there were a multitude of explanations as to what was going on. A child could be excitedly waking his mother from bed, as if it were Christmas morning. Someone could have fallen, or maybe dropped a rather large book from their bookshelf. 

Before I could evaluate all of the other possibilities, the ceiling cracked and a very tall man fell through. He was attached to a rope, and had either fallen asleep or maybe he had hit his head, that I wasn’t sure about. Before I was able to properly react and help the sleeping man, my door swung open to reveal a small man who seemed to be dressed as a nun.

“How do you do?” he asked, looking up at me. 

“My name is Patrick Marie Raymond Toulouse-Lautrec-Montfa. I’m terribly sorry, we’re rehearsing a play upstairs.” he continued. I stared at the small man, puzzled. It looked as though he had strawberry colored hair that was colored by ink, with facial hair drawn on by a pencil. He quickly waddled over to the sleeping man and stared at him, babbling on and on, not making any effort to help him.

He told me about their play, it was called Spectacular, Spectacular. He said it was very modern, and although I wasn’t very sure what this play entailed, I decided to go along with it and agree with the man. 

“It’s set in Switzerland.” he added. He then proceeded to tell me that the man who had fallen through the ceiling suffered from narcolepsy.

“It’s strange, really. Perfectly fine one moment and then unconscious the next.” he shrugged. 

“How is he?” another voice asked. Patrick looked up and I followed his gaze to see three people crouched around the hole where the man had fallen. The man on the right was very thin and wore odd glasses, the man (or woman, I wasn’t too sure) was wearing blue hair and red lipstick and a large gold necklace. The man on the left had a beard and extravagantly decorated top hat. 

“Oh wonderful. The narcoleptic Uruguayan is unconscious.Therefore the scenario will not be finished to present to the financier tomorrow.” the man-woman complained. 

“I still have to finish the music!” the man with the odd glasses exclaimed. 

“We just find someone to read the part!” Patrick suggested. 

“And where in heaven’s name are we going to find someone to read the role of the young, sensitive Swiss poet goat herder?” the man-woman replied. 

To be quite honest I was prepared to leave them to their own problems and have another round at the city, but before I knew it I was upstairs, filling in for the unconscious Uruguayan man. The set they had created was not as impressive as I had hoped but I could see some determination. There was a small mountain made of wood, painted with purples and blues and whites. There was a goat statue, which looked offsetting while Patrick stood next to it. Patrick began singing while the man with the odd glasses was playing something around the idea of a piano. 

“The hills animate with euphonious symphonies of descant!”

The man-woman looked displeased and gave Patrick an unfriendly stare.

“Oh stop! Stop that insufferable droning! It’s drowning out my words! Can we just stick to a little decorative piano?” they complained. 

The man-woman was then introduced to me as Michael, furthering my suspicions that he was in fact a male. I then learned the man with the odd glasses who played piano was named Ryland. It was very clear to me that Michael and Ryland had a multitude of creative differences, with Michael writing lyrics and Ryland composing the music. 

“Well to be quite honest I don’t think a nun would say that about a hill.” the man with the beard and fancy hat, whose name was Jon, suggested.

“What if he sings, “the hills are vital intoning the descant”?” Ryland offered. 

“The hills quake and shake-” Patrick exclaimed.

“No no no!” Jon complained.

“The hills are incarnate with symphonic melodies!” another voice spoke rather enthusiastically. I spun around to see the narcoleptic Uruguayan standing up where we had left him, before falling asleep again. 

“No.” Jon repeated.

The room became a jumbled mess of shouting something along the lines of “the hills”, with no one in agreement. I stayed quiet and thought for an answer to their problem. I tried to step in, however they were all much louder than me and they didn’t realize that I might have a potential solution. I watched Michael get more upset while Ryland and Jon were getting a tad too close to each other’s faces, giving me the harrowing fear that they might erupt in a fight. I continued to raise my voice in hopes that they would turn their attention toward me. I took in a deep breath and tried to muster up the breath in my lungs to give my input.

“The hills are alive with the sound of music!” I exclaimed. They were all silent, and I could not tell if they were pleased or confused. 

“The hills are alive with the sound of music! I love it!” the narcoleptic Uruguayan exclaimed, awaking once more, staggering towards the makeshift stage. The rest of the cast smiled at each other, and I prayed that it was something good and that I had solved their issue. They all began to repeat my words, adding music and putting it into their song. However Michael still looked unconvinced, and watched his acquaintances flutter around the room in song.

“It fits perfectly!” Ryland marveled, offering me a smile. I wasn’t sure what the rest of the song sounded like, but my head would not stop thinking about lyrics to add to the song.

“With songs they have sung for a thousand years!” I offered. They all gasped, and I felt pleased that I had gotten rid of their writer’s block. 

“Incandiferous!” Patrick exclaimed, a large smile on his face. 

“Michael, you two should write the show together!” Patrick suggested. 

“I beg your pardon?” he responded, clearly not pleased with the idea of sharing the job. The rest of the cast gave him a pleading look, but he did not sway. 

“Goodbye!” he exclaimed, trudging out of the room and slamming the door. I did feel bad, and part of me wanted to run after him and apologize. However that thought was erased when Patrick pulled me to the other side of the room with a drink in his glass.

“Here’s to your first job in Paris!” he smiled, eagerly taking the drink.

Ryland pulled him back and tried to whisper something in his ear, however he wasn’t very quiet and the rest of us did hear.

“Patrick, you know that Wentz will never agree!” he said. Ryland looked back at me.

“No offense, but have you ever written anything like this before?” he asked. 

“Um, no.” I admitted.

“Ah, the boy has talent! I like him!” the narcoleptic Uruguayan interrupted. He paused.

“Nothing funny. I just like talent.” he mused. 

“The hills are alive with the sound of music! With Ryan we can write the truly Bohemian revolutionary show we always dreamt of!” Patrick exclaimed happily.

“But how will we convince Wentz?” Ryland questioned.

However, Patrick had a plan. 

“What about...Satine?” he grinned. They turned around to stare at me. 

“What if we put him in a suit, and tell Satine that he’s a famous English writer! She’ll be amazed by him, and she’ll insist that Ryan write the play!” Patrick exclaimed. 

While this plan did sound very exciting and convincing, I could not help but hear my father’s voice echoing inside my head-

“You’ll end up wasting your life at the Moulin Rouge with a can can dancer!”

I got so intensely overwhelmed as the cast squabbled and planned around me.

“Oh, I can’t write the show for the Moulin Rouge!” I exclaimed, beginning to flee from the apartment. 

“Why not?” Patrick asked.

“I don’t even know if I am a true Bohemian revolutionary!” I replied. The others gasped.

“Do you believe in beauty?” Patrick asked.

“Yes.”

“Freedom?” the narcoleptic Uruguayan asked.

“Yes of course.”

“Truth?” Ryland asked.

“Yes.” 

“Love?” Jon added. I paused. 

“Love? Love? Above all things, I believe in love. Love is like oxygen. Love is a many-splendored thing. Love lifts us up where we belong. All you need is love!” I responded.

“See, you can’t fool us! You’re the voice of the Children of the Revolution!” Patrick exclaimed excitedly.

“We can’t be fooled!” they all shouted. They lifted me up from the ground and put my feet back on the floor.

“Let’s drink to the new writer of the world’s first Bohemian revolutionary show!” Patrick grinned. The cast came around to hug me and the narcoleptic Uruguayan man even grabbed my face and planted a kiss on my cheek.

To be honest, Patrick’s plan was really quite perfect. They told me to audition for Satine, and that night I would taste my first glass of absinthe. We all got rather drunk, so much so that I began to see a small green fairy, who sang the words back to me, and everyone else joined in, confirming the fact that they were as drunk as I was. 

We were off to the Moulin Rouge, and I was to perform my poetry to Satine!


End file.
